FOX still pimping Ayers connection for McCain

FOX and Friends didn't let the widely discredited and irrelevant story of Barack Obama's intermittent contacts with Bill Ayers fade away this morning 10/07/08. Even though there is no news value and no "there" there, the Friends repeated the tired talking points and brought some new faces to reinforce their point.

Another former FBI agent, Bill Daly, also had nothing of any weight to add to the gossip, but he did say that if he saw Bill Ayers walking towards him, he would cross the street. Ayers is not up to anything now, that he knows of, but he doesn't think a leopard changes his spots.

An hour later, Rudy Giuliani appeared to "advance the story" for his Friends. He took the angle of poor judgment and ridiculed the notion that Obama, who was 8 at the time of Ayers radicalism, didn't know his history when he met him thirty years later. He brought in Jeremiah Wright and Tony Rezko as other examples of Obama's "poor judgment."

Ayers and Obama weren't just associates, he claimed - they sat on a board together and distributed millions of dollars ("probably to ACORN")! Obama's had a very radical education, he said.

Finally, halfway through the third hour, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs (top dog yesterday) addressed the issue again, and said that Rudy Giuliani casting aspersions on anyone's judgment after he recommended "ethically-challenged" Bernard Kerik to be Director of Homeland Security is "kinda like being called ugly by a frog." As the New York Times has reported, Ayers and Obama are not close; he is neither an advisor nor a donor.

Gretchen Carlson brought up that Barack Obama wrote a "blurb" for Ayers' book, "To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher " as further evidence of his closeness - why, everyone who writes a blurb is BFF with the author - I'm sure Stephen King's new best friend is David Wroblewski, for example.

Gibbs said people don't want to hear from the candidates on these trumped up "issues," they want to hear tonight, during the debate, about plans to fix the economy, tax cuts for the middle class, putting people back to work, - but "what about character?" interrupted Carlson. Sure, let's talk about character, and judgment, and everything, invited Gibbs. It's the McCain campaign that doesn't want to talk about the issues - the most breathtaking thing Gibbs has heard in weeks was a campaign spokesman admitting "If we talk about the economy, we lose." The candidates owe it to the American people to talk about the issues important to them, he concluded.

Now FOX will pat itself on the back for allowing Gibbs to speak at all, fairandbalanced style, but will ignore that he's treated like a hostile witness, with pointed questions designed to put the Obama camp on defense.

This Ayers "connection" is going nowhere - the minutes of board meetings where both men attended were released and obviously they got nothing from it - because FOX would be trumpeting it 24/7 if they had. On the other hand, don't expect to see too much indignation, investigation, whining, or debate about this revelation, that John McCain was linked to group in Iran-Contra case : Organization had ties to former Nazi collaborators, right-wing death squads.
In fact, all we'll hear from them is denials, dismissals, and defense. And somehow they'll blame the Obama camp for MSNBC's reporting, and attack MSNBC for even reporting it in the first place. You betcha.